If you’re a fan of Leica’s digital rangefinders and have been skeptical of DxOMark’s ability to determine sensor quality through its rigorous tests, you might want to skip over the lab’s newly published test results on Leica’s M series sensors.Read more…

dpreview has published an in-depth hands-on preview of the new Fujifilm X-Pro1. The image above shows the camera next to a Leica M9-P digital rangefinder, which costs about $8,000 — body only.

It’s not rocket science to work out who Fujifilm are really gunning for – the X-Pro1’s similarity to the Leica M9 demonstrates the company’s refound confidence, having already placed the X100 squarely up against the Leica X1. It’s pretty clear that Fujifilm very much sees the X-Pro1, with its hybrid viewfinder and infinitely-variable framelines, as the modern autofocus reincarnation of the classic rangefinder. Let’s not forget that the company is no stranger to the high-end professional market – it may have had a hiatus of several years, but made a wide range of medium format film cameras.

Back in August, it came to light that some of Leica’s $7,000 M9 cameras had a problem in which they would corrupt the SD card being used — a problem that caused one photographer to permanently lose work after a day of shooting. The company quickly acknowledged the problem, and today announced that they had finally discovered the cause:

Thanks to the close collaboration with SD card manufacturers, Leica has now managed to rectify the fault by making adjustments to the firmware. To ensure compatibility with as many cards as possible and to ensure that all the related processes remain fault-free and are not compromised, comprehensive testing must be carried out in the development phase.

In the coming weeks we will test a beta version of the firmware in practice in cooperation with affected and selected customers.

The firmware fix will be released to the general public after they’ve thoroughly tested it.

With a suggested retail price of £19,800 (currently about $32,000) and only 500 units in existence, Leica’s limited edition M9 Titanium probably isn’t a camera you’re ever going to lay eyes on in real life. When it was announced back in September of last year, we predicted that most of them wouldn’t see the light of day and would be placed immediately into collectors’ vaults. Luckily for us, someone decided to actually unbox (gasp!) one of these babies (camera #164), allowing us to see what it’s like to receive such an absurdly expensive camera.Read more…

Here’s interesting behind-the-scenes video shot at a Leica factory that gives you an intimate look into how $7,000 Leica M9 digital rangefinder is assembled. Each of the cameras receives a lot of tender loving care.Read more…